A Daddy's Love

He's going to be so mad at me for saying this...

but she's got him wrapped around her little finger!

In all fairness, she's pretty smitten with him, too!

Everyone Says, "Take My Picture With the Dog"...

It's the thing to do, lately.

"Take my picture with the dog, Mom!"

Ok, then :)

Obviously, some turn out better than others!

(By the way, my dog is not a monster...she's just yawning!)

The New Thing Around Here

These boys are all about Rescue Bots these days...they're like Transformers for little kids, and the boys are crazy about them at the moment.  It is so funny to watch them play together as they get older.  They make up stories, "rescue" each other, and laugh like crazy.  It is AWESOME and I just love it!  

It's so funny to see how "rough and tumble" Nathan is with Matthew, and then to see how gentle (most of the time!) he is with Hannah.  I love seeing these different sides of him and watching the three of them interact.  People ask me all the time if they are brothers.  My answer..."Yep!".  Without a doubt, they are brothers!

Adventures at the Audiologist

I've got to admit, having walked down this road a little bit already, I am finding this time around much easier and much less stressful.  I know what to expect, I know the doctors and therapists and audiologist, I understand more, and it's way easier.  This week we started the journey towards getting Hannah hearing!  What an exciting journey to be on!

We headed to our audiologist and ENT, and before Hannah got to go back, it was Nathan's turn for a hearing test.  I don't remember if I posted this last time or not, but Nathan can tend to be a little bit of a stinker and is usually pretty uncooperative for these things :)  This time, I prepped him for days and I have to say, it paid off!  He did AWESOME!  I was so proud of my little man, and excited to learn that his hearing has improved a little over the last few months.  

Next up was Little Miss, and she did amazingly well (actually, I believe "outstanding" is the word the audiologist used!).  I was pretty surprised to find out that she actually falls into the "mild/moderate" hearing loss range, which is even better than Nathan's hearing.  Wow!  Not what we expected, but great news!  We also found out that she will be able to wear a Bone Anchored Hearing Aid (BAHA) which is on a soft headband (it transmits sound through the bone), and that she will have normal hearing with this!  Wow again!  We had prepared for the worst but it looks like once again we got the best possible outcome.  We hope to have our little one's BAHA in the coming weeks and to get started with speech therapy.  I can't even imagine how loud our house is going to be a year from now (you should hear how loud it is already!).

Every day I marvel at this precious little gift God has brought to our lives.  She fits so perfectly in with our family, she is a joy and brings a crazy amount of smiles to all our faces, and we just feel so blessed.  It's hard to believe I really wrestled with God about saying yes to her file...I felt like it was too soon, and it would be too hard, and too expensive, and the kids were all too close together in age...but He knew all along that she was to be our child.  I'm so thankful that He helped me past the fear and the doubts and took us on yet another journey of faith.  It is not always easy, but it is more wonderful than anything I could think up for my life.

Look What She's Been Up To...

We have seen so much improvement in Hannah's strength since we first met her.  She is not able to pull up to standing yet...but if I prop her up she can now stand at the couch for a little while without falling over or sitting down!  

After a few minutes, she does start to look a little worried...

Another big accomplishment this week - Hannah learned how to sit up from lying down!  I was so proud of my little girl when she figured this out and you should have seen the look on her face - she was proud of herself, too!  Now she does it all the time...Nathan still claps for her every time she sits up :)  When I went to get her up from her nap the other day I found her sitting in her bed (first time she'd sat up without anyone encouraging her!).

I have no idea how long of a journey it will be for our little one to get from here to walking, but I am excited to get started with physical and occupational therapy next week and to keep building up those muscles.  There is lots more clapping to come, I'm sure!

Tired But Happy...

I'm feeling a bit "zombie-like" today...sleep seems to be eluding our household once again!  Sickness has come, which has Matthew coughing and waking up a lot.  Nathan is learning to sleep on his own (without us laying beside him) which sometimes has great results (slept through the night alone two nights ago!) and sometimes is a pain in the neck (up at 5:30am yesterday and today).  Hannah has been having "mystery symptoms" and stomach issues and has been waking up a lot.  The doctor thinks she is allergic to milk...are you kidding me?  She had blood work done yesterday to see if she is, and if she has any other allergies.  We just had to laugh at this one - at least we have experience with this issue!

Once we took her off dairy, Hannah cheered up immensely.  During the day.  I'm not sure if it is pain or grief at night, but there was some serious crying last night.  Thankfully it didn't last long and she is comforted by me or Brad pretty well.

Hannah had almost stopped eating for the last week with not feeling well.  One day she wouldn't eat anything for me...I went to fix my lunch and when I turned around I found Nathan feeding her!  She ate the whole bowl for him!  So funny and cute!  He is so gentle with her it astounds me (because he is totally a rough and tumble kind of boy).

Hannah has been playing in the pack-and-play a little bit each day just so that I have somewhere safe to put her if I need to go and switch laundry or something like that.  She fusses at first a tiny bit then sits and plays happily for 10-15 minutes.  

Whenever Brad puts Hannah to bed, it seems that he puts himself to bed, too!  This is what I found when I went in at 9pm the other night (he put her to bed at 7pm!).  We are so tired out it's hard not to fall asleep anytime we're horizontal!

I'm so thankful that the only real problem we've had with Nathan since bringing Hannah home is that Nathan loves his sister too much sometimes...he wants to sit with her, touch her, play with her all the time and sometimes she just needs a little space!  She loves him, too, though - the other day she was in the bath, and Nathan came in and asked to get in as well.  When I put him in with her she smiled so big, it was very sweet.

I'm so thankful her smile returned yesterday after we changed her diet!  She hasn't been this happy since we were in China - it was wonderful to see!  I kind of felt like we broke her!

Our consistency with Nathan seems to be paying off (although he is sitting in time-out as I type this for sitting on his brother's head...again...sigh).  He has been listening so well, playing nicely, and seems much happier these last few days.  I hope he knows that we will be his Mom and Dad forever and that these trips have not hurt him but actually solidified for him that we will always love him.  He is so precious and I'm so thankful for how he has come through this transition!

And if they would only sleep...life would be close to perfect...